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Now Presenting… Your V120 C-Team

By Bwog Staff on
Oct 25, 201339 Comments

Welcome welcome welcome to V120—that’s right folks, it’s time to start anticipating this year’s Varsity Show! The creative team was just announced and this year we’ve got a lot of anticipating to do: the V120 creative team is virtually the same as V119. In fact, Rae Binstock, CC’15, is the only person on the team who has never before participated in a Varsity Show. Here’s your core group, wish them luck and give ’em a high five when you spy them on College Walk:

@This is Shame-less ne-po-ti-sm. last year’s staff essentially chose themselves/their friends again. I hope the theater community actually does something about these shitty politics that run this shit.

@Anonymous These are amazing, talented people and they’ll definitely put on a great show. That being said, it’s obvious the Columbia theater community is one big circlejerk. It’s disappointing to see so many repeats when you know these are not the only talented people on this campus.

@But There are three people on this team who are new to vshow cteams and have worked with other clubs (nomads, cup, kcst) which is great! If 119 chose to pick themselves (they were all removed from the entire decision making process) then hopefully they did it to make the best show possible.

@questioning whether they picked the repeats because they are the most qualified or if the only reason they are the most qualified is because they have been done this before. I’m thinking this year was hardest for “new-comers”… doesn’t sound like the new talent had a chance

The v show is generally better when people know what to expect. Last year the writers, producers, and composers were all rookies and they made a bad show. Quit your bitching. It’s gonna be a great varsity show and this team is great.

@Anonymous @hmm: @hmm: IMHO…as someone involved in student theater but not on creative/production team (ain’t nobody got time for dat): Here’s the thing…who else is there to choose from? Of the pool of applicants, how many are qualified to take on a show at the scale of Varsity Show? CMTS/Xmas/CUPAL put on shows all throughout the year but I barely see new names/faces, it’s always the same people. This doesn’t mean it’s nepotism, it’s just that no one is signing up to be Assistant Director, Assistant Producer, Assistant Designer, etc. which are key roles to take before becoming an actual director or producer of anything, much less the Varsity Show. You really can’t just hand a show with a six-figure budget and stage the size of Roone to someone who has never worked in student theater at Columbia. So instead of going ahead and saying, “they’re just picking their friends” have you ever considered that there is a shortage of directors, producers, writers, designers in the pipeline who are qualified and willing to take on a show at the Varsity Show-scale? I myself was approached to apply for Art Director, and wisely chose not to as that would have made V119 a complete design disaster. Also, people who have worked on Varsity Show tend to want to do Varsity Show again. This isn’t a new thing, and if you look at the team for V118 (arguably the best show in recent years) there is also high number of Varsity Show alumni. Now before you go around arguing that the Varsity Show sucks because they keep selecting the same people, why don’t you consider the fact that these same people just represent the only viable options they have? Now…if they cast the same actors, I’d argue there’s a high level of preference and nepotism, but for production and creative teams, they just can’t seem to find many people to choose from.

@Anonymous IMHO…as someone involved in student theater but not on creative/production team (ain’t nobody got time for dat): Here’s the thing…who else is there to choose from? Of the pool of applicants, how many are qualified to take on a show at the scale of Varsity Show? CMTS/Xmas/CUPAL put on shows all throughout the year but I barely see new names/faces, it’s always the same people. This doesn’t mean it’s nepotism, it’s just that no one is signing up to be Assistant Director, Assistant Producer, Assistant Designer, etc. which are key roles to take before becoming an actual director or producer of anything, much less the Varsity Show. You really can’t just hand a show with a six-figure budget and stage the size of Roone to someone who has never worked in student theater at Columbia. So instead of going ahead and saying, “they’re just picking their friends” have you ever considered that there is a shortage of directors, producers, writers, designers in the pipeline who are qualified and willing to take on a show at the Varsity Show-scale? I myself was approached to apply for Art Director, and wisely chose not to as that would have made V119 a complete design disaster. Also, people who have worked on Varsity Show tend to want to do Varsity Show again. This isn’t a new thing, and if you look at the team for V118 (arguably the best show in recent years) there is also high number of Varsity Show alumni. Now before you go around arguing that the Varsity Show sucks because they keep selecting the same people, why don’t you consider the fact that these same people just represent the only viable options they have? Now…if they cast the same actors, I’d argue there’s a high level of preference and nepotism, but for production and creative teams, there just aren’t many people to choose from.